In Cambodia, Comedians Double as Government Propagandists

In 2005, Krem created a routine
called "Be Careful Not to Overuse Your Rights" that cast aspersions on
human rights workers who teach Cambodian villagers about equality. And,
during every election season, the comedians barnstorm around the
countryside on the CPP's behalf.

General Hing Bunheang,
commander of the Prime Minister Bodyguard Unit, an autonomous section
within the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, confirmed that the unit had a
bureau called the "Propaganda and Education Commission." It comprised
152 performers and artists, including the bulk of the country's
comedians.

"Most of them are men, and they have the same rank as
colonels. They have their own weapons," he said. As soldiers, the
comedians "can go to battle with Thailand if there is a need," he added.

They can also misuse their weapons: In April, the popular
comedian San Mao, also known as Colonel Thu Chamrong, was detained in
Phnom Penh after firing his military-issue handgun in the air during a
brawl. Police quickly released him, suggesting that the bodyguard unit
discipline him.

According to General Bunheang, artists receive
personal invitations from Hun Sen to join the unit and sometimes perform
for audiences free of charge at the premier's request. He insisted that
the members of the Propaganda and Education Commission are not engaged
in propaganda.

"The bodyguard group is not for political propaganda but for entertaining people," he said.

Mu
Sochua, a prominent opposition lawmaker, laughed at Bunheang's claim.
Sochua had herself narrowly avoided a jail term after she was stripped
of her parliamentary immunity and convicted of defaming the prime
minister in 2009.

"It's a form of propaganda," she said. "It's
not art, it's not promoting freedom of expression in the arts. ... The
language that is used by the comedians, and sometimes even the gestures
and the movements, convey a lot of power and authority and violence. And
the message is all about good and evil."

Krem, the stage name of
Colonel Ou Bunnarith, is a case in point. Perhaps the most passionately
partisan of all the comedians, he displays an almost missionary zeal
for winning converts to the CPP.

"Convincing people via artistic
performances is very successful, and it is easy to take people out from
their misbehavior or participation with the wrong political parties," he
said in an interview.

Krem has been a household name in Cambodia
since the 1980s, when the nation was only a few years removed from the
ultra-communist Khmer Rouge regime and in the thick of a civil war with
the movement's militant remnants. That is also when Krem first joined
the Hun Sen bodyguards, which dispatched him to perform shows in Khmer
Rouge-controlled areas to encourage defections.

"We were there to
perform for the Khmer Rouge soldiers and propagandize for those
soldiers to return to their motherland," he said. "We did political
propaganda in our performances, and our words made them pleased."

Now
that the Khmer Rouge have been eliminated, with the regime's four
surviving senior leaders soon to be tried in Phnom Penh for war crimes,
Krem applies his comedic talents toward ridiculing the country's rapidly
shrinking political opposition. During the 2003 national election
campaign, he produced and acted in a two-hour film called Mistletoe that
lampooned both Prince Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy, portraying the former
as a pleasure-seeking sycophant and the latter as an out-of-control
meddler. In the lead-up to local elections in 2002, he created a short
film that made fun of garment workers who protested in the streets for
better wages.

"When the election campaign comes, we have to do a hundred percent propagandizing for ... the CPP," he said.

Koy,
the stage name of Colonel Chuong Chy, a doughy, thick-featured man, is
also active on behalf of the government. Of the four men in the comedy
troupe that Koy leads, three of them -- including Kren, a popular
comedian with dwarfism -- belong to the Prime Minister Bodyguard Unit.
The fourth is an officer in the 70th Infantry Brigade of the Cambodian
army, which is also closely linked to the premier and has been accused
of human rights abuses.

Like Krem, Koy joined the bodyguards
in the 1980s, starting out as a captain and rising to colonel two years
ago in a mass promotion of entertainers. In person, he is terse and
severe, rarely cracking a smile. Although he openly describes the work
he does as propaganda, he insists his troupe writes all its own skits
with no government input.

"We just tell people how good [Hun Sen]
is, how he constructed the country, how many buildings he builds," Koy
told me backstage after one of his performances, fiddling irritably with
the keys to his Lexus. "Nobody tells us what to say. We just describe
what we have seen- -- roads, schools, irrigation -- and make it a little
bit funny."

Standing nearby was Koy's longtime friend, Colonel
Chhum Bunchhoeurn of the 70th Infantry, still sporting painted-on white
whiskers and eyebrows. Colonel Bunchhoeurn, best known by the stage name
Banana, agreed that any political overtones to the group's comedy were
totally coincidental.

"We don't have time to talk about
[politics] because we're just concerned about striving to make people
laugh," he said. "If we pretend to be a father, we're just concerned
with being a father."